Hospitals under pressure in China where, after the end of the zero-Covid policy, the hospitalizations of people infected with the coronavirus have increased significantly. Above all, elderly patients ended up in hospital, so much so that some doctors quoted by the BBC speak of ”extremely crowded” healthcare facilities.
For example, staff at Huaxi, a large hospital in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, said they were “extremely busy” treating Covid patients. “Almost all the patients have Covid,” said an emergency room pharmacy staff member, as he braved long lines of people with fevers, some being treated with oxygen tanks.
The Guardian then quotes Zhang Yuhua, an official at Beijing’s Chaoyang Hospital, as saying that recently hospitalized patients are mainly elderly and frail. The number of patients receiving emergency care, he added, has risen from 100 to about 450 to 550 a day, according to state media.